Marketing-Interactive reports on stats from Omniture SiteCatalyst that suggest CNN attracted 136 million page views and served a record 21.3 million live video streams on CNN Live, as of 3.30pm (EST) yesterday.
According to the report, CNN Live’s use of Facebook boosted the figures with an estimated 1 million users updating their status on the social network through the CNN site.
As Craig Silverman points out, CNN has come up with a rather novel way to atone for a mistake – by offering free advertising.
The network mistakenly aired footage about the island Yap calling it Guam.
Following up from last week’s post on CNN and NPR’s plans to get social with their coverage of Barack Obama’s inauguration as US President, the Associated Press (AP), Al Jazeera and Sky News have all announced plans to host their own online broadcast events:
AP
The agency will live stream the inauguration day events from 7am on its online video network, which is syndicated to partner newspaper and broadcaster websites, in a development of its live coverage of election night in November.
“AP Television News will provide unanchored coverage, from morning coffee at the White House, to the swearing-in ceremony, to the multi-camera shots of the inaugural parade. APTN, with access to dozens of pool cameras along with a dozen of its own, will have cameras in the crowds to capture the sounds and emotions of the millions who plan to attend,” says a release.
Al Jazeera English
The broadcaster will make the most of its recent deal with Livestation by hosting a live webchat on the platform between senior Washington editor Rob Reynolds and viewers on Thursday (Jan 15) at 9pm GMT.
Sky News
Sky News made use of plenty of multimedia and some streaming technology in its coverage of election night. On January 20 a news package ‘Obama: The Inauguration’ will be shown in high definition online and live streaming of the inauguration ceremony from 5pm GMT will also feature.
Last night’s discussion at POLIS of the Guardian’s ‘It starts with a village project…’ in the Ugandan village of Katine raised plenty of questions about development journalism and the media’s accountability, and whether media organisations can work in the long term with NGOs and charities.
[See Journalism.co.uk’s Tweeted coverage of the event]
By far the most interesting remarks were made by Richard Kavuma, a Ugandan journalist working for the Guardian on the project for two weeks every month.
Kavuma, who was named CNN Multichoice African journalist of the year in 2007, is caught in the middle between AMREF, the Guardian’s partner in the project, and the paper – a tension he has learnt to live with and not let impact upon what he sees as his purpose as a journalist:
“My own understanding of the media from the elementary classroom is that we are supposed to be the voice of the people. Especially those who do not have the voice to be heard. I saw it [Katine] as an extension of what I was meant to be doing as the media.
“This project is bringing the voice of Katine to a wider interational audience – what they perceive as their problems and how they think the project is helping or not helping them.”
“There have been challenges at the centre of some fairly salient tensions: I’m not trying to become a PR officer, I’m a journalist.
“Traditionally the media is supposed to be a watchdog, we scrutinize things. But the NGOs get money from donors and they’d like to prepare good reports on how much the money has done.”
The Guardian and AMREF have been trying to recruit more local journalists to write for the project, but to little avail, as journalists in the country’s capital are already overworked, Guardian writer Madeleine Bunting added.
As a result Kavuma says his reporting has become something of a novelty and has attracted a great deal of interest. Part of this, which he is too modest to mention, comes from more focus on people-led reporting – a journalistic style not widely used by the Ugandan media:
“The tone is changing and becoming more people-centred [in the Ugandan media]. For example, it’s not reporting about mortality, but writing about a woman who is losing her life for becoming pregnant.
“I can’t claim the credit, but I am part of a new movement, which is putting people at the centre of development reporting.
“In Uganda high politics is seen as selling papers. The issue for the media is to try and spot the high politics in the development issues and writing stories as an issue of not numbers but of people.”
The content site for the project had its highest level of traffic last month with 46,000 uniques, Bunting told the gathering. But, as contributor and Guardian environment editor John Vidal pointed out, it’s not about traffic, the project ‘had to be done’.
Despite its flaws – huge costs, some conflict with partner organisations, slow recruitment of Ugandan contributors – those involved insisted there were invaluable lessons to be learnt from the scheme, which is just a third of the way through.
Kavuma agreed: there are lessons about a journalist’s role and writing as a development journalist; but more importantly there’s an opportunity to educate the public about the development process – how hard/easy it is and the ongoing progress.
A move away from, as Madeleine Bunting said, the traditional reportage of development:
“[S]weep in, show the extent of suffering and say that your cheque will put it all right and actually not got back to check.”
To mark President Elect Barack Obama’s inauguration on January 20, news sites are plotting and planning their online coverage already:
CNN
CNN’s going for the social networking angle, teaming its live video streaming site, CNN.com Live, with Facebook. Users will be able to update their Facebook status from the CNN site and see a stream of updates from their friends.
The updates entered via CNNLive will be tagged with the hyperlink ‘via CNN.com Live’ so Facebook contacts can click through to view the inauguration site from the social network.
NPR
At the end of last year, NPR used its inside blog to put a call out for social media ways to cover the inauguration. Among the ideas mooted in the post were:
More help is wanted from techies and journalists – contact Andy Carvin (@acarvin on Twitter) via the blog post.
CNN reports that the Zimbabwean government is demanding that foreign journalists pay a combined annual licence fee of $36,000 to practice journalism in its country. This appears to be supported by a story in the Zimbabwe Times. Full story…
The Council for the Advancement of Science Writing, the National Association of Science Writers, the Society of Environmental Journalists and the World Federation of Science Journalists have sent a joint letter to the networks presidents to protest against CNN’s decision to cut its entire science team.
Well, we could have brought you ‘Flocking Around the Twitmas Tree’, ‘We Three Nings’ or just a straightforward end of the year list (if only to add to our list of lists), but instead we chose this: your sing-along treat to round-up 2008 is the ‘Twelve Days of Online Media Christmas’ (hyperlinked to relevant stories, but bear in mind it’s a selection of picks and not comprehensive…).
On the first day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … An editor in a law court
Colin Myler, News of the World
On the second day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Two arrested hacks
Milton Keynes Citizen’s Sally Murrer / ITV’s John Ray (video below)
… And an editor in a law court.
On the third day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Three web gaffes
Steve Jobs and CNN / United Airlines stock collapse / AFP photo ‘altering’
… Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!
On the fourth day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Four journo forums
Wired Journalists / Journalism Research / Visual Editors / Journalism.co.uk forum
… Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!
On the fifth day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Five Tweeeeeetin’ friends
Stephen Fry / Paul Carr / John Cleese / Mark Mayhew (Hurricane Gustav) / the Mad Men
… Four journo forums, Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!
On the sixth day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Six news sites out-linking
WashingtonPost.com, BBC, NYTimes.com, CNN.com, Drudge Report, Not the AP (they didn’t even want to be linked to)
… Five Tweeeeeetin’ friends, Four journo forums, Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!
On the seventh day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Seven feeds a-mashing
Publish2.com, Daylife, Delicious, Digg, Technorati, FriendFeed, Yahoo Pipes
… Six sites out-linking, Five Tweeeeeetin’ friends, Four journo forums, Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!
On the eighth day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Eight maps a’plotting
Hurricane Gustav tracker, BBC Beijing Olympics map, PaperCuts newspaper job losses map, Economist pre-election map, NYTimes.com post-election map, Managingnews.com’s newstracker during Chinese earthquake, Interactive maps of Canadian tornado damage, Journalism.co.uk new timeline-maps.
… Seven pipes a-mashing, Six sites out-linking, Five Tweeeeeetin’ friends, Four journo forums, Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!
On the ninth day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Nine strikers strikin’
Le Monde, Writers’ Guild of America, Australian Fairfax newspapers, Express Newspapers, Sheffield Star.
(or at least thinking about it…) Trinity Mirror Midlands, Telegraph Media Group, ITV regional, BBC Scotland.
… Eight maps a-plotting, Seven pipes a-mashing, Six sites out-linking, Five Tweeeeeetin’ friends, Four journo forums, Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!
On the tenth day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Ten blogs a-blooming
10,000words.net, Adrianmonck.com, Jay Rosen’s PressThink, OnlineJournalismBlog, BBCJournalismLabs, BusinessMediaBlog, RegretTheError.com, Publishing2.com, Spokesman Review’s Daily Briefing, Tomorrow’s News Tomorrow’s Journalists
… Nine strikers strikin’, Eight maps a-plotting, Seven pipes a-mashing, Six sites out-linking, Five Tweeeeeetin’ friends, Four journo forums, Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!
On the eleventh day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Eleven papers packing
(up for new offices) The Guardian, the Birmingham Mail, the Independent.
(away their desks forever) NY Sun, Belfast’s La Nua, Kazakhstan’s Law and Justice, Moscow’s The Exile, US Post newspapers, Trinity Mirror weekly titles, Switzerland’s Mittelland, three editions of Spanish Metro.
… Ten blogs a-blooming, Nine strikers strikin’, Eight maps a-plotting, Seven pipes a-mashing, Six sites out-linking, Five Tweeeeeetin’ friends, Four journo forums, Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks, And an editor in a law court!
On the twelfth day of Christmas my feed read’r brought to me … Twelve sites a-starting
Trinity Mirror mobile sites, outside.in UK, Spot.Us, Hubdub.com, Coventry Telegraph, FT’s Alphaville Long Room, Magicalia, DailyPostCymraeg.co.uk, Time Out Kuala Lumpur, the BusinessDesk Northwest, the Daily Beast.
(and re-focusing) CSMonitor.com.
… Eleven papers packing, Ten blogs a-blooming, Nine strikers strikin’, Eight maps a-plotting, Seven pipes a-mashing, Six sites out-linking, Five Tweeeeeetin’ friends, Four journo forums, Three web gaffes, Two arrested hacks and an editor in a law court!
The deal between Reuters and Politico is a far better proposal for newspapers seeking an alternative to the Associated Press (AP) than CNN’s plans for a newswire, argues Philip M. Stone.
It’s ‘an outstandingly smart marketing ploy’ by Reuters, adds Stone, as it gives the agency access to a wider range of newspaper subscribers.
Yesterday I picked up a discussion on Facebook, via a friend, about media coverage of the Ghanaian elections (voters went to the polls yesterday, and votes are being counted now, if you missed it, by the way) why had there been so little election coverage on the Western networks? Very little on CNN; very little on BBC.
“I was hoping, only hoping that for just a fraction of a moment the media cameras and the pens will slip from Mugabe’s Zimbabwe onto Ghana. Just a bit of positive reportage on Africa! That’s all I was hoping for. But I guess that’s not sensational enough for the Western media. ‘Ghana peacefully elects a new President’… that’s not headline stuff! It simply does not sell,” wrote Maclean Arthur.
Meanwhile, rounds up the poor global news coverage here, on his blog. ‘Does Ghana exist’ he asks? He finds it ‘interesting that many of the leading Western media outlets have not made a mention of Ghana 2008 Elections.’
“Perhaps, Ghana does not exist on their radar screen. Ghana, like the rest of black Africa will only pop-up on their monitoring screens when over 1,000 people have butchered themselves or over 300,000 people are dying of starvation, or over 500,000 people are displaced by a civil war,” Ajao writes.
Over on Facebook, others were quick to join in the criticism and call for more African specific coverage, in the form of an African television network.
That’s exactly what Salim Amin wants to set-up, in a bid to counter existing coverage (or lack thereof) with a proposed all-African television network, A24, as I have written about on Journalism.co.uk before. Amin told me in September:
“Everything we get is negative out of Africa. 99 per cent of the news is genocides, wars, famine, HIV.
“We’re not saying those things don’t occur or we’re going to brush them under the carpet, but what we’re saying is there are other things people want to know about. About business, about sport, about music, environment, health…
“Even the negative stuff needs to be done from an African perspective. African journalists are not telling those stories – it’s still foreign correspondents being parachuted into the continent to tell those stories. We want to give that opportunity to Africans to come up with their own solutions and tell their own stories.”
However, Amin is still searching for suitable investors that won’t compromise the ideals and aims of the channel. In the meantime, A24 exists as an online video agency.
The pitiful global coverage of the Ghanaian election reinforces the need for better and wider spread African news coverage, that isn’t just the stereotypical coverage we’re so used to, as Maclean Arthur referred to on Faceboook as ‘the usual images of dying children with flies gallivanting all over their chapped lips.’
Yes, some websites are bridging some gaps (for example, New America Media for the ethnic media in the US, and Global Voices Online – who wrote about Twittering the Ghanaian elections here), but there’s still a heck of a way to go. BBC World Service may have a Ghana Election page, but it’s not quite on the same scale as you might see for a European election is it?